Murder One was a bookshop in the Charing Cross Road from 1988 to 2009, "catering to readers interested in hard-to-find and collectable crime, mystery, romance and science fiction literature". [1] It was the first UK bookshop to specialize in the crime and mystery genres, and at its opening in 1988 the largest specialist "genre" bookshop in Europe. [2] It was owned by the novelist Maxim Jakubowski.
The bookshop closed upon the owner's retirement in January 2009. [3] [4] [5] [6] The shop existed as a mail-order business, owned by a previous employee of the Murder One shop, Tanya Stone, until July 2023. [7]
Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as speculative fiction and other genre fiction in the mid-nineteenth century and has remained extremely popular, particularly in novels. Some of the most famous heroes of detective fiction include C. Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, and Hercule Poirot. Juvenile stories featuring The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and The Boxcar Children have also remained in print for several decades.
Horror is a genre of fiction that is intended to disturb, frighten or scare. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror, which are in the realm of speculative fiction. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon, in 1984, defined the horror story as "a piece of fiction in prose of variable length... which shocks, or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing". Horror intends to create an eerie and frightening atmosphere for the reader. Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for larger fears of a society.
Pulp magazines were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the late 1950s. The term "pulp" derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazines printed on higher-quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks". The typical pulp magazine had 128 pages; it was 7 inches (18 cm) wide by 10 inches (25 cm) high, and 0.5 inches (1.3 cm) thick, with ragged, untrimmed edges. Pulps were the successors to the penny dreadfuls, dime novels, and short-fiction magazines of the 19th century.
Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, often a murder. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as historical fiction or science fiction, but the boundaries are indistinct. Crime fiction has multiple subgenres, including detective fiction, courtroom drama, hard-boiled fiction, and legal thrillers. Most crime drama focuses on crime investigation and does not feature the courtroom. Suspense and mystery are key elements that are nearly ubiquitous to the genre.
Dame Edith Ngaio Marsh was a New Zealand mystery writer and theatre director. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1966.
The "locked-room" or "impossible crime" mystery is a type of crime seen in crime and detective fiction. The crime in question, typically murder, is committed in circumstances under which it appeared impossible for the perpetrator to enter the crime scene, commit the crime, and leave undetected. The crime in question typically involves a situation whereby an intruder could not have left; for example the original literal "locked room": a murder victim found in a windowless room locked from the inside at the time of discovery. Following other conventions of classic detective fiction, the reader is normally presented with the puzzle and all of the clues, and is encouraged to solve the mystery before the solution is revealed in a dramatic climax.
Genre fiction, also known as formula fiction or popular fiction, is a term used in the book-trade for fictional works written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre.
A hybrid genre is a literary or film genre that blends themes and elements from two or more different genres. Works in hybrid genres are also referred to as cross-genre, multi-genre, mixed genre, or fusion genre. The Dictionary of Media and Communication describes hybrid genre as "the combination of two or more genres", which may combine elements of more than one genre and/or which may "cut across categories such as fact and fiction". Some such sub-genres have acquired their own specialised names, such as comedy drama, romantic comedy ("rom-com"), horror Western, and docudrama.
Ronald Joseph Goulart ( ) was an American popular culture historian and mystery, fantasy and science fiction author.
Patricia Nead Elrod is an American novelist specializing in urban fantasy. She has written in the mystery, romance, paranormal, and historical genres with at least one foray into comedic fantasy. Elrod is also an editor, having worked on several collections for Ace Science Fiction, DAW, Benbella Books, and St. Martin's Griffin. She self-published a signed, limited edition novel under her own imprint, Vampwriter Books.
Otto Penzler is an American editor of mystery fiction, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City.
Maxim Jakubowski is a crime, erotic, science fiction and rock music writer and critic.
Lillian Stewart Carl is an American author of mystery, fantasy and science-fiction novels.
Kenneth Martin Edwards is a British crime novelist, whose work has won multiple awards including lifetime achievement awards for his fiction, non-fiction, short fiction, and scholarship in the UK and the United States. As a crime fiction critic and historian, and also in his career as a solicitor, he has written non-fiction books and many articles. He is the current President of the Detection Club and in 2020 was awarded the Crime Writers' Association's Diamond Dagger, the highest honour in British crime writing, in recognition of the "sustained excellence" of his work in the genre.
Mitzi Szereto is an American-British author of multi-genre fiction and nonfiction. She has written novels and short stories, and edited fiction and nonfiction anthologies, including her popular true crime franchise "The Best New True Crime Stories." Her books to date have been in the areas of crime fiction, true crime, cozy mystery, Gothic fiction, horror, quirky fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, paranormal romance, sci-fi/fantasy, erotic literature, parody and satire, Southern fiction, and fiction and nonfiction anthologies. She edited the first anthology of erotic fiction to include a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. A story contribution from her crime fiction anthology Getting Even: Revenge Stories received a “Highly Commended” from the Crime Writers’ Association’s (CWA) Short Story Dagger. Her books and short stories have been translated into several languages. She created/presented "Mitzi TV," a Web TV channel covering the quirky side of London, England; segments have ranged from chatting about vintage cars with Formula 1 race car driver/BBC TV presenter Tiff Needell and couture shoe designer Jimmy Choo to joining in a lively pub singalong and covering a teddy bear festival. She makes a cameo appearance portraying herself in the British mockumentary Lint the Movie. She also maintains a blog of humorous personal essays at "Errant Ramblings: Mitzi Szereto's Weblog."
Dark They Were and Golden Eyed was a science fiction bookshop and comic book retailer in London during the 1970s; the largest of its kind in Europe. Specialising in science fiction, occultism, and Atlantis, the central London shop also played a key role in bringing American underground comics to the United Kingdom. It also sold American editions of mainstream science fiction books that were not easily obtained anywhere else.
Stanfords is a specialist bookshop of maps and travel books in London, established in 1853 by Edward Stanford. Its collection of maps, globes, and maritime charts is considered the world's largest. It has also supplied cartography for the British Army and for James Bond films.
The Mysterious Bookshop is an independent bookstore and publisher specializing in mystery fiction, located in New York City. It is one of the oldest mystery bookstores in the U.S.
Jim Huang is an American author and editor of crime fiction, as well as the owner and operator of Crum Creek Press and The Mystery Company imprint.